Tag Archives: humor

Do You Remember Taffy…that Infamous Welshman?

17 Monday Oct 2011

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My neighbor is in the process of putting together a costume for her five-year old daughter. Kindergarteners from the local elementary school will be participating in a Halloween parade, this year, dressed as characters from nursery rhymes. Little Bo Peep… Little Miss Muffet… The Queen of Hearts… All require dramatic costuming and provide the opportunity for props… desirable options for a parade of this sort. We can’t help but chuckle at the thought of a classroom full of elaborately costumed five-year olds.

Years ago, in preparation for a teaching career, I was enrolled in a children’s literature class. I had loved the nursery rhymes, as a child, so I was excited when it came time to discuss them, in class. Instead of focusing on the colorful characters or the meter of the verses, we examined their content for violent themes, learning that many of the well-known nursery rhymes were never really intended for children. I found that fact interesting but I would have rather discussed why these rhymes still have so much appeal. Understanding that nursery rhymes were cartoons, of sorts, with their roots in the political and social undertones of the day, explained why they were often politically incorrect. But did anybody have any insight into how children explained the “plots” to themselves? I should have asked but it was the 70s…we were focusing on social injustices.

Rereading all of these nursery rhymes, in my college class, made me curious. Did I have a favorite one, as a child? Did it have a violent theme? Did I ever question the stories depicted in those rhymes? My mother didn’t even hesitate when I asked her about my favorite nursery rhyme.  My unchallenged favorite?   Taffy was a Welshman

TAFFY WAS A WELSHMAN

Taffy was a Welshman. Taffy was a thief;

Taffy came to my house and stole a side of beef;

I went to Taffy’s house, Taffy was in bed;

I picked up a marrow bone and hit him on the head.

Mama Lisa's World @ mamalisa.com (from National Nursery Book/publication date unknown)

Sort of a bizarre choice for a girly-girl who disliked confrontation. But I recognized it, as soon as my mom said the title, and I immediately could recite those four verses from memory. I would later learn that there are numerous verses and versions of this nursery rhyme. But the gist of the rhyme is clear from these four lines and they were the ones that made me laugh.

It could be argued that this is a rhyme with anti-Welsh lyrics. It was popular in England, in the 1800s, at a time when it was thought neighbors from Wales were stealing from the English. But there is also another theory that says the rhyme has its origins in Celtic Mythology. Taffy was derived from Amaethon, the God of Welsh Agriculture, well-known for stealing wild life from the God of the Otherworld. How did I handle this politically incorrect verse? Politically what? I just assumed Welshman was Taffy’s family name.

How did I handle the violent actions in the rhyme? I was somewhat of a shy child and I didn’t handle my frustrations by whacking others. Sometimes I saw my classmates do it but I never remember thinking that was funny. Reading about someone being hit on the head, with a bone, was very funny to me. Perhaps because I knew it was just a made up story. Maybe because table manners were important in our house and it struck me as hilarious that someone would take a meat bone, from their dinner plate, and sprint across the street with it.  It really didn’t need explanation, for me. I knew that characters in books and poems often did things that I couldn’t or shouldn’t do.

I came away, from that class, with the opinion that educators/parents need to be aware of what their children are reading as well as paying attention to their interpretations and reactions. No person, with a conscience, purposely endorses violence or encourages prejudice so we need to make sure that we don’t do it inadvertently Once we’ve done that, we might be able to just sit back and enjoy the rhyming verses, the charming illustrations, and in many cases, the humor of it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlBvbVbGDLY

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How Should I Explain the Demise of the Hummingbird?

23 Tuesday Aug 2011

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Years of research and an untold amount of money has been spent, over the decades, to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs. Was it a volcano?  Meteor?  Extreme climate change? It would have been so helpful if one of those cave-dudes, who once rode a dinosaur to his job at the rock quarry, would have taken the time to record the reason for the end of the reign of those magnificent monsters. He could have, so easily, enlightened us and saved us all these years of expensive, inconclusive research.

My husband and I have a hummingbird feeder on the patio outside of our bedroom. We love to wake up in the morning and watch the hummingbirds buzz around the feeder madly defending what they consider to be their own.  My husband has assumed the responsibility of cleaning and filling  the feeder. One morning, as he was standing on the patio, enjoying the cool quiet of the morning, one of our hummers buzzed the side of his head, then zipped around for just a second, to meet him face to face. My husband was mesmerized. And that’s when he realized that the hummingbird feeder was empty. Was this little feathered creature reminding him he had neglected his responsibility? Who knows… but it appears that was the case as it now happens whenever that feeder is empty.

Several weeks ago as I was having lunch with friends, I shared the hummingbird story. I guess I thought our close encounter with the hummingbird represented a special, unique experience. Not the case. Every single person there had a similar tale to communicate. They shared stories of hummingbirds buzzing kitchen windows,  hovering around people swimming in pools and pestering gardeners pruning bushes. Our experience was anything but unique.

Then it dawned on me! Either natural selection will provide the humans of the future with a brave, in-your-face hummingbird who bangs his long beak into sliding glass doors and windows and pecks human heads as a reminder that its dinner time. Or these beautiful little creatures will totally lose their ability to recognize a real flower and identify real nectar having relied on the store-bought hummingbird feeder, for so long. As I see it, it’s just a matter of time, even if it is a millennium, before the hummingbird is extinct. That means it’s only a matter of time before children dress as hummingbirds for Halloween, can pronounce every species of hummingbird regardless of the number of syllables, and a movie is created about a park inhabited by genetically recreated hummingbirds that run fly amuck.

I’d like to do the thoughtful thing for those future generations and save them the agony of all that extensive research. But, my dilemma is in deciding which story to choose to leave as the explanation. I think a hole in the ozone story might be an appropriate explanation. It’s dramatic and has all the pieces necessary for a future full length feature film.  The meteor theory might be plausible again. Who knows how much damage might really have occurred by meteors, by then. Or maybe I should go with the truth and explain they died from a type of amore. They were simply loved to death. It would be a charming legacy and not a bad way to go.

Just Hand Over the Dishes and Nobody Gets Hurt

01 Friday Jul 2011

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I need a Twelve-Step Program for my addiction to dishes. Yes, you read it correctly. I am obsessed with dishes. Not the commemorative type that people buy to remember special occasions or unique places. I can’t seem to own enough dinner plates, salad bowls, 16-piece dinnerware sets.

As my generation was growing up, it was readily accepted that blame for everything unpleasant about yourself be placed on your parents.  As I see it, my mother really is to blame for my out-of-control dish fetish.

We were a little family, just the three of us, but that never stopped my mother from making a big deal about meals. Every night we ate dinner on an artfully set table complete with candles. She owned just one set of everyday dishes but she mixed and matched those basically white dishes with solid black bowls and salad plates, different placemats, and candles. Our table looked remarkably different, each night, even though it was set with essentially the same dinnerware.  

 My father was no help.  Delighting in the dinner atmosphere that she created, he did irrational things to support her. One day, he sanded and painted three inexpensive, wooden, salt and pepper shakers so she would have some additional touches of color on the table.  As you can see, I was doomed from the very beginning.

When you’re a teenager, you don’t really want to be like your parents but I recognized, early on, that I’d be wise to emulate many of my mom’s personal traits.  She loved to spend time with friends, had a definite sense of style, and a genuine ease with entertaining. I never seemed to develop her sense of table style or her genuine ease at entertaining. But I loved my friends and somewhere along the way, I must have decided that I could make up for what I was lacking, in the hostess department, with a substantial collection of dishes. I bet even Perle Mesta, the hostess with the mostess, didn’t own as many dishes as I do.

So, my journey down this road of dish acquisition began. To my first, simple set of white, everyday dishes, I added sets that matched the accent colors in my apartment. From there, I moved to thematic dishes…after all, what says yummy breakfast better than a chicken running across your plate? Eventually, holiday dishes joined the collection. Christmas dishes had become quite popular and were easy to find. I’ll probably have a harder time finding Ground Hog’s Day dishes.

Meanwhile, my friends think I’m crazy. Luckily, they haven’t tried a group intervention. My friend, Judy relentlessly asks me when she will be receiving an invitation for dinner. “Roger and I are so looking forward to coming to dinner,” she’ll exclaim, “we can’t wait to eat from lobster dishes and use those matching lobster crackers.”  I know she’s just taunting me.  And she doesn’t have a clue how long I searched for a set of lobster dishes that coordinated with those red metal lobster pinchers.  Nobody really understands.

 As we head toward Independence Day, I thought it might be appropriate, for a blog on celebrations, to feature a picture of a festively set table highlighting my Fourth of July dishes. Aren’t they just the cutest… with their little pointed stars and subtle red stripes? I’ll be enjoying them for the entire month. Then, I’ll pack them away knowing I won’t see them again for another year. The only thing that will keep me from shedding tears is the fact that the black dishes with the pumpkins will be out in just 92 more days.

Happy 4th of July!